MTA worker recounts his run-in with the ‘subway saboteur’
An MTA subway driver described the heart-stopping moment an e-brake-happy, serial saboteur struck and brought his train to a grinding halt.
“I was in between stations and I was operating the train, going at a good speed, all of a sudden the train just completely stops,” the driver told The Post in an exclusive interview, describing a May incident in Brooklyn.
“It’s decelerates pretty quickly. My mind was running a mile a minute. My immediate reaction is to try to figure out why the train has gone into emergency.”
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So he started running through the possibilities: Someone could have fallen and gotten hit moving in between cars, the signals could be busted, maybe a passenger pulled the in-car emergency brake.
“It just becomes problem solving after that,” said the driver, who asked that The Post not publish his name or details about the trip that could identify him.
The driver and conductor checked for the normal causes — but it was only when the conductor reached the very back of the train that he realized someone had unlatched a security chain and climbed into the empty, rear operator’s cab to yank the brake lever there.
But the clue just raised more questions.
“How the hell did he get into the cab, because we have those doors usually locked,” the driver said.
Officials believe the subway saboteur is using a special MTA-issued master key to gain access to the operator cabs where train controls are located — though a secondary key is needed to actually run the train. It is unclear, however, how the fiend got his hands on the key.
“They tell us: ‘Never lose the key,’” the driver said, explaining that workers have to fill out a form to obtain a replacement if theirs is lost or stolen.
It took the driver and his conductor as long as 15 minutes to find and fix the triggered brake — which meant trains were piling up behind them and causing rippling delays.
“Ten to 15 minutes could seriously jam things up,” he said.
The rail rogue is suspected in dozens of brake-pulling incidents since January that led to nearly 750 delayed or cancelled trains since March — and the driver who spoke with The Post said he can’t wait until the goon is busted.
“It’s not gonna be fun when he gets caught — and eventually he’s gonna get caught,” he said. “For him, the fun and games are going to stop soon, and I can’t wait to see it when he gets caught.”
